Tachyon

A work in progress by Ann K

RATING:  R, although ratings of individual chapters may vary. Please read carefully. 


CATEGORY:  X-File, some MSR


FEEDBACK:  annhkus@yahoo.com


UNIVERSE:  Think season five or so. This is just Mulder and Scully, trying to 

figure out a strange case and keep themselves in one piece during the process.

DESCRIPTION:  Mulder and Scully travel to a small Mississippi town to investigate a 

strange series of disappearances. Can they figure out the truth behind the mystery 

before it is too late?


DISCLAIMER:  Mulder, Scully and the X-Files belong to Chris Carter, 1013 and Fox. 

Tachyon, Part One: Lost

I.

“Finis origine pendent.” (“The end depends on the beginning.”)

--Manlius

“So, you are saying that she simply disappeared?”

She couldn’t help the look of disbelief that crossed momentarily over her face. She was tired, she was hot, and she wanted to be anywhere else, anywhere but Faunsdale, Mississippi, listening to this man ramble on about vanishing fast food workers.

He glared at her, ignoring Mulder standing against the wall with his arms crossed. “That’s what I said, wasn’t it? It’s not like she evaporated in front of my eyes. Like I told you, I gave her my order, she turned around to walk behind the counter, and she never came back,” he answered.

“Tell us again, Mr. Everett, how you were the only one in restaurant,” Mulder said, his voice betraying none of the frustrations she knew he was feeling. It had been a long week for the both of them. Mulder stood beside her for just a moment, just long enough for her to be reassured they were on the same wavelength, and then pulled the chair out from the table and sat across from James Everett.

Everett’s eyes flickered to her to Mulder, then back to Scully again, and he sighed. “Look, I know this sounds bizarre. It does to me, too, and I was there. But, for the last time, this is what happened. I got off my shift late. I usually do, what with all the crazy hours they have me working at the plant lately. I always stop by and pick up some supper on the way home. Amy always worked the evening shift, and we got to know each other.”

He paused, and she saw the flicker of sadness on his face. Against all logical reasoning, she realized with a jolt of surprise that she believed him. “She kept the lights on when she wanted me to know she would be there. I walked in the store, we talked for a minute, she went to get my hamburger, and she never came back. I waited, and then I walked around looking for her. That’s when the police came.”

An off-duty sheriff had driven by, seen the lights on in the town’s sole fast-food joint at a time when everyone knew it should be closed, and now they were here, investigating the disappearance and possible murder of Amy Johnston.

“What did you tell the sheriff, Mr. Everett?” Mulder asked.

Mr. Everett ran his hands through his balding hair, and slumped further into the dingy chair. “Just what I told you. That she was there one minute, and then she was gone.” 

The door opened in the back of the room, and Scully saw the young deputy stick his head in the door. He didn't look old enough to drive, much less carry a gun. “You about done with the suspect, Mr. Mulder?” She was almost accustomed to being ignored by the police force, seeing how it had started the minute they arrived in town. Scully was too tired to care.

“You can take him. I think we are done here,” Mulder answered, watching as Mr. Everett walked slowly out of the room, the door clicking shut behind him. Silence.

As Mulder moved over to the room’s sole window, the dingy pane of glass revealing the view of the town’s main street, she couldn’t help but watch her partner. He wore his shirt sleeves rolled casually to the elbow, an acknowledgement to the sweltering Mississippi humidity. His hair revealed the slightest hint of gray, but his face remained the boyish, inquisitive one she had grown to love—and she could tell this case had him frustrated, but intrigued.

“So, Scully, what do you think of our Mr. Everett?” he asked as she walked towards him, leaning against the wall. She shook her head at his offering of sunflower seeds — really, Mulder, have I ever said yes? — before answering. “Prepare yourself, Mulder. I think I believe him.”

He grinned. “I know. I saw your face when we were talking. For what it is worth, I do, too. So, where does that leave us?” Scully paused at his rhetorical question, and then answered anyway. “It leaves us to add the disappearance of an eighteen-year-old girl to five unexplained missing persons reports in the county in the last six weeks. No apparent connection, no real witnesses, no suspects, aside from James Everett, who, by some freak event of nature, we both seem to believe is innocent.”

She stopped, walking over to the table to pick up their files. The security tape from the restaurant had shown exactly what Mr. Everett described, Amy Johnston walking to the back of store and simply disappearing. One moment she was there, the next moment she wasn’t.

“This doesn’t make sense, Mulder. Not only do we not have any witnesses, we don’t have any evidence. No fingerprints, no bloodstains, no ransom notes, nothing. The lab in DC said the tape was unaltered. But people just don’t disappear into thin air.”

Scully waited for his predictable argument to that last remark, and turned to look at him when he offered none. “Mulder?” she asked quietly. He had seemed preoccupied over the last few weeks, months even. They were both exhausted. Not that she had expected their jaunt to Faunsdale to be a vacation for them, but it seemed on paper to be a simple, albeit perplexing missing person case. Scully was thinking a little differently now.

“Mulder?” she asked again, walking over to where he stood against the window, staring at the people outside. “Ever wonder what kind of lives these people lead, Scully? 

She watched as the young boy filled up his car at the gas station, some teenage girls laughed outside the grocery store, and a line of cars waited at the fast food restaurant. A dog wandered down the sidewalk, a flock of birds flew overhead. Seemed to be a typical portrait of rural America. For some reason, she found the Norman Rockwell imagery annoying.

“Normal ones, Mulder,” she answered, feeling a little peeved at his question. Did he want to know why their lives were so bizarre in comparison? Hadn’t they already discussed this? “Probably with no serial murderers, alien clones, one-armed stalkers or mysterious viruses. Just normal—families, jobs, children, mortgage payments.” She was tired, and just wanted to get home. 

Everett had given them nothing to go on, and had also probably extended their stay in the lovely little haven of Faunsdale by at least another couple of days.

She jumped as Mulder caught her arm. Looking into his gaze, Scully realized how easy it would be for her to grab Mulder and settle down into a normal life of their own. Sometimes, she amended her thoughts. When things got too crazy, she wanted the white picket fence and dog in the backyard. But only sometimes.

“I’m sorry, Scully. I was just thinking out loud really. I didn’t mean to upset you.” He held her gaze for a second longer and then leaned down to open the door. Registering the fact that being in the South seemed to turn Mulder into quite the gentleman—occasionally—Scully smiled her thanks. “I’m fine, Mulder.”

The hallway was empty as they walked towards the exit. Not surprising, really. The town was so small that they met the entire police force upon their arrival. Faunsdale itself was tiny, only a couple thousand people, but still one of the largest cities in the county. Which made the six missing person cases even more of an anomaly. In a town this size, that statistically just didn’t happen in such a short period of time.

“Where to now?” Scully asked as they stepped into the sunlight. It was unusually bright outside, she realized with surprise, remembering the morning weather forecast that had called for afternoon rain. Slipping on her sunglasses, she thumbed through the worn pages of Amy Johnston’s file. “We have the missing girl’s grandmother, her high school cheerleader coach, her Sunday school teacher. We might be able to get some information from them.”

Not only was it bright, she thought with a frown, the air was unusually humid. Not really humid, Scully corrected. Heavy. Must be the rain coming in, as she felt her blouse sticking to her lower back and the trickle of sweat between her shoulder blades.

Mulder was silent. He was staring at the street in front of them, and the intense look on his face gave her pause. “Mulder? What’s wrong? Did we miss something?”

He turned to her, his expression blank. “Hey, Scully. Look around. What do you notice?”

She unconsciously lifted an eyebrow, trying to figure out the punch line to Mulder’s joke, and looked down the street. Everything seemed to be as they had last seen it: the fast-food restaurant on the corner, the grocery across the road, the lights in the drugstore sign dull in the incredibly bright sunlight.

But something was wrong. Scully knew it instantly, but it took her a moment to realize what it was. The line at the restaurant had disappeared. No one was walking out of the grocery store. The chatty teenage girls were gone. The dog, the birds. Nothing.

There were no cars driving on the street, no people on the sidewalk, no customers in the stores. “Oh my god, Mulder. What just happened?” Everything was deserted.

It was as if all signs of life had vanished, leaving only the two of them standing in the desolate street.

Everyone was gone.

II.

When you live in a big city, with thousands of people and cars and traffic, it is never really quiet. Even when you close your door and pull the shades, there is an almost imperceptible hum, a constant reminder of the life that surrounds you. She realized how eerie silence could be, a complete and utter silence where your heartbeat was your only companion.

Mulder’s voice caused her to jump. “There’s nothing here, Scully,” he announced, coming out of the last store on the section of street closest to the police station. “No purses, cell phones, wallets. It’s like no one was ever here.”

She had walked back into the police station first, only to be greeted by the empty reception desk and a row of holding cells. She knew that two of the cells had been full only moments ago, as she and Mulder had walked into the interrogation room.

No James Everett, no Detective Monroe. No one. Scully reached for her cell phone, the familiar weight in her jacket reminding her of her ever-present link to the outside world. It seemed that, no matter where they ended up, the cell phone worked.

Mulder watched her as she hit the speed dial, connecting to Skinner’s office in DC. The sound of the numbers rushed through the line, but then there was no sound, and no receptionist. An odd crackling noise sounded distantly in her ear, a strange, unfamiliar noise. “Anyone there?” Mulder asked. Scully shook her head. “No connection,” she offered. She glanced down at the face of the phone, where the time and date were always displayed.

It was blank.

Scully walked out into the street, blinking into the harsh sunlight. She felt like she was in a daze. Mulder came to stand beside her. They were both silent, likely because neither of them knew what to say. Not only was there no one around, it was as if no one had ever been around. Faunsdale was an admittedly small town, but it was bustling for its size. There was no way that everyone had decided to go home for the day. 

“Let’s look at this analytically, Mulder,” she offered, feeling a desperate need to have her version of reality verified by her partner.

“We spent last night at the Dew Drop Inn in Faunsdale, Mississippi. We are here investigating the disappearance of Amy Johnston, another victim in what has been a string of missing persons. You got coffee this morning for us at the Stop and Go, the restaurant where our victim was last seen.”

He nodded, going along with her tale, although she knew he was only trying to make her feel better. His mind was already working through a thousand possible theories. “We picked up some muffins at the grocery on our way to the station,” Scully continued. “The grocery was full of people.”

She looked at him for confirmation, and felt a rising panic. “Mulder,” she whispered, reaching out to hold his arm, “what the hell is going on?”

Scully couldn’t shake the feeling that had settled on her since they walked out of the police station. It was like a winter blanket, cutting off her oxygen. Something was wrong, very wrong. She never panicked, even during the worst of times, but she felt the rising surge of nausea in her throat as she glanced down the empty street.

Mulder met her gaze and offered a reassuring smile. “I don’t know. But I know that I am here and you are here and that is something. What I don’t know is where the hell everyone else is. Not ten seconds before we walked out of that station, I looked out the window and saw people. I saw cars driving down the street. I saw that damned annoying woman from the grocery store this morning.”

He walked away from her, rambling as he ran his fingers through his hair. “What are our options here?” He was thinking out loud, and Scully instinctively joined him. “A hoax of some sort, perhaps,” she offered as her first thought. “It’s not like we have been too welcomed here since our arrival.”

Mulder thought for a moment. “But there wasn’t enough time for everyone to get out of town. And there would have been evidence of some sort. Tire tracks, personal items. And who would have orchestrated such an elaborate set-up?”

She frowned. They had been in unsettling positions so many times before, dangerous ones where the difference between their lives and their deaths depended on the ability to rationalize the answer to whatever dilemma presented itself. They could figure this out.

“Okay, so if it wasn’t an elaborate hoax, could this somehow be related to the missing person cases? I mean, all of our victims came from this area,” Mulder suggested, walking over to the sidewalk and sitting unceremoniously on the curb. 

“Sure, it could be related,” she answered. “But the whole town to go missing instantly? That’s even more of a statistical anomaly than the facts we knew, that we were sure of, before we came here.”

She sat beside him, gazing down the street. The streetlight caught her attention. It was hanging still in the stagnant air, and she pulled her sunglasses down to look at the lights closer. They were all shining; the red, yellow and green staring steadily back at her. Leaning backwards, she saw the lights on the opposite side were the same. All illuminated. But none of the other lights in the town were shining.

She looked back at Mulder, surprised that he was speaking. “It is possible that the townspeople have disappeared,” she caught him saying. “I mean, there is history of this sort, of towns vanishing without a trace, with no word from the residents.” 

Scully shook her head. “But in a ten-second time span, Mulder? That’s not likely. And everything else in town is still here— the buildings, the trees. Even some of the electricity is still working. Look at the streetlights.”

Mulder looked at the lights as she pushed herself off the sidewalk, walking into the store behind her. It was only slightly cooler inside, yet Scully noticed the same vibe in the air that she sensed in the street. It wasn’t necessarily a current she could feel against her skin, and it wasn’t something she could hear. It was a vibrancy of sorts; intangible electricity in the air that she sensed rather than heard or felt.

She turned as Mulder came in behind her, and watched him as he picked up a candy bar off the shelf. “Mulder, really. How can you be hungry at a time like this?” He gave her a wry smile. “Power food, Scully. Makes me think more clearly.”

In spite of the tension, she couldn't help her light laugh. "If that's power food, then you might want to pass some my way. I think we need the combined power of our brilliant analytical skills to figure this one out." Scully watched with amusement as he carefully broke the chocolate bar into two pieces, then hesitated only for a moment before giving her the slightly larger half. "Thank you, Mulder. I think." They resumed their watch of the empty main street, leaning against the counter, his shoulder resting lightly against her own. 

The sunlight was impossibly harsh, reflecting off the asphalt and shining directly into her eyes. Even inside the store, she squinted against the brightness. “It’s so damn bright outside, Mulder. And humid, the air is so thick—”

The answer came to her with such clarity and force that she doubled over with a gasp, sitting unsteadily on the ground. “Scully? What is it? What’s wrong?” Scully looked up at him, the concern on his face registering at the same time the words tumbled from her mouth. She was amazed they hadn’t realized the truth sooner.

She managed to find her voice, unsteady as it was. “Mulder, I don’t think anything has happened to the people in this town. I think something has happened to us.”

III. 

"The laws of physics do not rule out the possibility of time travel."

Dr. David Deutsch, "The quantum physics of time travel," Scientific American, March 1994

She awoke in Mulder's bed. His masculine smell lingered on the cheap motel room pillow stuffed under her head, and she could feel the rumpled sheets around her feet. She kept her eyes closed for a moment longer, unwilling to open them to answer the question of why she was in Mulder's motel room. 

The sensation was comforting, yet she knew more sinister things awaited her when she opened her eyes. The air was ominous, and shadows danced in front of her closed eyes. Scully drifted for some time between sleep and reality. She dreamt of her mother, and Missy, and she swore she saw her father standing beside the bed, reaching out to comfort her with a withered hand. Oh, god, she was tired.

Scully rolled to her side slightly as the bed shifted and his voice reached her ears, concern underlying the whisper. "Scully? You awake?" Her eyes fluttered open, into the brightness of the room. "Hmm," she managed, struggling to sit up, feeling instantly queasy. "When did we get back here?"

Mulder steadied her as she swung her legs over the side of bed, watching her carefully before going to the dresser behind him and picking up a bottle of water. "You don't remember?" he asked softly. She shook her head, trying to clear it, trying to put some semblance of order to her thoughts. Everything was a blur inside her head, and she felt the remnants of a pounding headache behind her eyes.

"I remember sitting inside the store with you, eating a candy bar and trying to figure out where everyone was. Let me guess, Mulder. You gave me the tainted end." He smiled, though only in appreciation of her attempt at humor, and sat beside her again, offering the bottled water.

Scully couldn't remember the last time she felt so exhausted. Rather, she didn't want to remember, memories of the hospital and Penny Northern and her cancer sneaking in uninvited. It was the same feeling she'd experienced standing in the deserted street, a heaviness in her chest, a tingling in her toes.

"I didn't faint, Mulder. I am fine."

She could see the anxiety in her partner's eyes as he watched her steadily. Finally, he looked away, and blinked twice. "I didn't say you fainted," he offered defensively, but she could sense the concern in his voice. “I brought you into my room so you could rest and I could watch you.”

They had to figure out what had happened to them, not be concerned about her need for a nap in mid-afternoon. She had no recollection of getting back to the motel, but she wasn't about to tell Mulder that. He didn't need to know how disoriented she was. They had to get back home.

"The motel office was empty," he said quietly. "No dial tone on the phone, no reception on the television, no static on the radio. I agree with you, Scully, that something has happened to us, has affected our version of reality, but I can't quite figure out what that was. The time span was too short, between looking out the window and walking out that door."

"But you do think that something happened to us."

"I think that much is obvious." She mussed over his response, trying to remember the last time they agreed on anything, besides James Monroe's innocence. "So where does that leave us?" 

He accepted the bottled water back and took a quick drink before answering her. "For now, I figure it leaves us right here in this motel room, until you get to feeling better and I get some rest."

Scully stood, swaying slightly, then forced her feet in front of her. Step, pause. Step, pause. Jesus, she felt horrible. Mulder had opened the front door wide, and she pulled the paisley curtains open from the motel room window. The sun was as bright as it was when they were in town. She saw the sky at the same time as Mulder's hand came to rest on her shoulder, and she knew that he, too, had seen.

The clouds were racing by as if someone was playing a videotape at fast speed. There was no breeze in the air, but the white plumes in the sky rushed by them. The cluster of pine trees across the road weren't moving, nor was the cotton in the nearby field being disturbed. Only the clouds in the sky were twisting and dancing above them.

Almost as if they were standing still, and everything else was moving forward. Only that wasn’t possible.

Mulder's voice broke her awed silence. "It has been like this since we got back to the motel. I didn't notice it in town, and you saw the weather report this morning yourself." She nodded, remembering that she had told Mulder to bring an umbrella. The forecaster has said there would be a small rain shower this afternoon. But these weren't rain clouds. There wasn't a hint of gray in the sky, yet the aura was foreboding and definitely gloomy.

"Guess the weatherman got this one wrong, huh?" she sighed. His hand tightened on her arm, then he stepped out into the parking lot. She listened to his shoes crunching on the gravel, and was convinced she heard an echo.

What the hell was going on?

"Mulder, where's our car?" she asked, finally cognizant of the fact that their Taurus was missing from the parking lot. In fact, there was nothing there, not even the spawn of big rigs she saw last night on her way to bed. He met her quizzical gaze. "You don't remember?" he asked. She grimaced, and forced the truth. If they had no car, she refused to contemplate how Mulder had gotten her back to the motel room. "No, I don't remember. But I am assuming that it wasn't where we left it in front of the police station, from the look on your face."

"Points to you, Scully. Now, if you can just tell me why it wasn't there, we'll be back to Washington this evening."

"I don't have a theory yet." He pinned her with his intense gaze as she continued. "But I assume you do." Of course he did. He always had some insane reason why they were chasing down liver eating mutants or possessed children or homicidal maniacs. Unfortunately, at this moment, Scully decided that whatever Mulder had come up with might be rational enough to be believed. There was a shortage of other options at the moment.

"I'm waiting with baited breath, Mulder."

"Are you telling me," he asked, his hands on his hips and a bead of sweat trickling down his brow, "that you, Agent Scully, are open and receptive to my theory in this case?" She couldn't help the grin at their familiar banter, although nothing else about this situation felt familiar. "Don't push your luck, Mulder. I am saying that I am interested in hearing your thoughts as to how you and I came to be the lone inhabitants of Faunsdale, Mississippi, and how the sky managed to get stuck on fast forward."

The clouds loomed behind him as he leaned forward. "Fine then, Scully. I think you and I have traveled in time."

She knew what he was going to say that before he said it. So why did his words cause a shiver of fear to go down her spine? She wasn't scared, of anything. Not that she would ever admit. She tilted her chin up to meet his gaze. "Time travel," she said, slowly, rolling the words around in her mouth as she considered the idea. She conjured up images of 1950s horror movies and H.G. Wells, not anything legitimate. Time travel was scientifically impossible. She had studied the idea when she was in college, contemplated all the possibilities. But it was impossible. 

"Yes, Scully, time travel." Mulder was as concerned as she was over their bizarre predicament, but she swore she could see the glimmer of excitement in his eyes. Typical. You could put them in a vat of ectoplasm, and Mulder would try to figure out where it came from before they got out.

He waited for the idea to sink in before he continued. "Think about it, Scully. Several cases of missing persons reported in the last six weeks, all mysteriously disappearing, in some cases right in front of our witnesses. People vanishing in thin air. Poof. Not possible, right?"

She nodded her head. Definitely not possible. But the cases were real. She had looked through the files this morning before they left for the police station. "And all of the signs we've seen point to some sort of larger atmospheric disturbance," Mulder continued. "No automobiles, no people, no reception on the television, no phone service. It is as everything that existed this morning vanished. Everything that was alive, biological or otherwise, is gone."

"Except for us," she concluded, her words sounding melodramatic in the stillness of the afternoon.

“Except for us,” he confirmed.

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Part Two: Discovery